Daily Junction.mobi portalEntertainment · August 19, 2026 · The Conversation · 5 min
Eighteenth-century caricaturists knew what modern film-makers understand: ancient myths can be endlessly adapted for new audiences.
<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <figure> <img alt="A line drawing showing a dog with three human heads. " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/754369/original/file-20260817-59-6au6gj.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&rect=0%2C838%2C5577%2C3137&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" /> <figcaption> William Dent depicts Cerberus, the Hound of Hades - a three-headed dog symbolising gluttony - as composed of the heads of politicians Charles Fox, Lord North and Edmund Burke. <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:42238">Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, Accession Number B1981.25.1573</a></span> </figcaption> </figure>
<span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/callum-smith-2503463">Callum Smith</a>, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/aberystwyth-university-999">Aberystwyth University</a></em></span>
<p>Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has brought Homer’s epic tale back to the big screen. The film is the latest retelling of a story that is almost 3,000 years old. But why do these ancient Greek stories continue to captivate new generations?</p>
<p>Nolan aside, Stephen Fry’s accessible retelling of <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/greek-mythology-14909">Greek myths</a> in 2017 and Disney’s Hercules (1997) film, for example, are part of a much longer tradition of repackaging the ancient world for contemporary <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/odyssey-best-greek-myth-movies-b3012213.html">audiences</a>.</p>
<p>In the 18th century, political caricaturists were doing much the same thing, turning Greek mythology into popular entertainment, and using it to mock the politicians of the day.</p>
<p>Unlike many stories, Greek myths have never had one definitive version. They’ve always existed in multiple tellings, allowing each generation to reshape them for its own concerns.</p>
<p>In the 18th century, satirists used them to attack politicians. Neoclassicism was a cultural movement that revived the art and ideas of ancient Greece and Rome, and it was influential among the educated elite. Knowledge of Greek mythology was part of a classical education, but caricaturists helped turn that knowledge into something a much wider audience could understand and enjoy.</p>
<figure> <iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f_bKjZeJBBI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <figcaption><span class="caption">Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is the latest in a long line of Greek myth adaptations.</span></figcaption> </figure>
<p>James Gillray and <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/eca/17/1/eca170104.xml">Thomas Rowlandson</a> were among the most accomplished of these artists, while others, such as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1754-0208.70035">William Dent</a>, produced cruder and more straightforward political jokes. Their caricatures were commercial products as well as political weapons: single-sheet prints, often hand-coloured, designed to be sold, displayed and discussed.</p>
<p>Greek mythology was particularly useful because its characters came with ready-made meanings. Hercules suggested strength, whereas King Midas suggested greed. The monstrous Hydra suggested a problem that seemed impossible to defeat. Caricaturists could borrow those associations and attach them to politicians.</p>
<h2>Politicians as Greek heroes and villains</h2>
<p>The politicians <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-satire-could-destroy-a-career-the-scandals-of-georgian-politician-charles-james-fox-282445">Charles James Fox</a>, William Pitt and Richard Brinsley Sheridan were recurring characters in this visual soap opera. Their personalities became familiar through years of caricature. Fox was portrayed as the socialite, gambler and womaniser. Pitt as serious, reclusive and stiff. And Sheridan as a failing, bankrupt politician with a fondness for drink.</p>
<p>The artists could then place these recognisable figures inside equally familiar myths. In <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/392688">The Infant Hercules</a> drawing, Thomas Rowlandson depicts the young Pitt as Hercules, fighting off two serpents representing politicians Fox and Lord North. </p>
<p>At first glance, Pitt is the hero. But the joke is more complicated. By portraying him as an infant, Rowlandson also mocks his youth and inexperience. Pitt became prime minister in 1783 at the age of just 24. His shield hints at the protection afforded by his father’s political legacy – William Pitt the Elder had also been prime minister.</p>
<figure class="align-center "> <img alt="A line drawing of The Infant Hercules by Thomas Rowlandson" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/752246/original/file-20260805-50-y5xes7.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/752246/original/file-20260805-50-y5xes7.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752246/original/file-20260805-50-y5xes7.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752246/original/file-20260805-50-y5xes7.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752246/original/file-20260805-50-y5xes7.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752246/original/file-20260805-50-y5xes7.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752246/original/file-20260805-50-y5xes7.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"> <figcaption> <span class="caption">The Infant Hercules by Thomas Rowlandson (1784).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/392688">Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959 Object Number: 59.533.38. Metropolitan Museum.</a></span> </figcaption> </figure>
<p>The myth therefore gives the caricature two layers. Even someone with little knowledge of Greek mythology could see the joke, while a more knowledgeable viewer could appreciate the references to Hercules, Pitt’s youth and his political inheritance.</p>
<p>James Gillray used a different Greek myth to attack Pitt’s policies. In Greek mythology, King Midas was granted the ability to turn everything he touched into gold. The gift quickly became a curse.</p>
<p>In Gillray’s <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/e79bfa10-c5ee-012f-3906-58d385a7bc34?canvasIndex=0">Midas (1797)</a>, Pitt becomes Midas, turning everything he touches into banknotes. The image attacks Pitt’s taxation policies and portrays him as greedy and self-serving. Gillray also gives Pitt the donkey’s ears associated with Midas, a visual shorthand for shame and foolishness.</p>
<p>The myth makes the political criticism instantly legible. Pitt doesn’t need to be explained at length because the audience already knows what Midas represents. Greek mythology could also be used to attack politicians on a much more personal level.</p>
<figure class="align-center "> <img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/752251/original/file-20260805-50-trrf4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/752251/original/file-20260805-50-trrf4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752251/original/file-20260805-50-trrf4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752251/original/file-20260805-50-trrf4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752251/original/file-20260805-50-trrf4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1045&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752251/original/file-20260805-50-trrf4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1045&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/752251/original/file-20260805-50-trrf4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1045&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"> <figcaption> <span class="caption">MIDAS, Transmuting all into Gold [Gold crossed out] PAPER.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/e79bfa10-c5ee-012f-3906-58d385a7bc34?canvasIndex=0">The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. </a></span> </figcaption> </figure>
<p>In Homer’s Odyssey, the nymph Calypso keeps Odysseus trapped on her island. Charles Williams reworked this story in <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-8014">The Modern Calypso</a>, depicting Richard Brinsley Sheridan as Mentor, the friend of Odysseus, in Calypso’s company. Sheridan is shown surrounded by wine, a joke about <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526187970/">Sheridan’s alcoholism</a>. The mythology provided the framework, but the target was firmly contemporary.</p>
<h2>A joke everyone could understand</h2>
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